Someone Set Up Us The Bomb
by Smileyfax
Summary: In a world where Daria never left Highland, she prepares to remind the world why it's not a good idea to scorn women.
1. Chapter 1

Special Agent Franklin evaluated the woman in the orange jumpsuit before him. After being admitted to the maximum security holding facility of the FBI's headquarters, her long auburn hair had been shorn and she had been given a thorough cavity search.

She looked bored.

"Miss Morgendorffer -- may I call you Daria?" Franklin started out.

"You may," Daria replied.

"Daria, can you tell me why you attempted to purchase 20 pounds of C4 off of our undercover agent?"

"Because I didn't realize he was an undercover agent."

Franklin put his hand to his forehead. She was one of THOSE.

Before he could reprimand her, she spoke up: "I needed it for a science project. Say, do you have the time?"

Caught off guard, Franklin looked down at his watch. "It's about four minutes until 11 AM, Daria. Now, what kind of science project do you need high explosives for?"

Daria was silent for a moment. Franklin looked at her file -- she had high marks in intelligence, but had mostly devoted her efforts to writing. After graduating from Lone Star University, she had mostly submitted short stories to literary magazines while she worked the sports beat for the Highland Journal. It didn't seem to add up.

"Have you ever killed a man, Agent Franklin?" Daria asked suddenly.

The hairs on the back of Franklin's neck rose. Warning sirens inside of his head screamed, 'UNABOMBER! UNABOMBER!'. "I can't say that I have, Miss Morgendorffer," he answered, sliding back into the formality of last names. "Have you?"

"Not yet," she replied with a sigh. "Listen, can you let me go now? I kinda have stuff to do."

Franklin was stunned at the woman's gall. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we generally don't just release people who attempt to purchase enough explosives to bring down a skyscraper. It's a little thing called Homeland Security."

Daria nodded. "It doesn't really matter, I'll be leaving soon anyway."

Franklin's stomach began to do a slow somersault. "Let me guess, your lawyer. Well, Daria, I don't know if you're aware, but the latest iteration of the PATRIOT Act allows me to hold you indefinitely -- no judge, no lawyers, no rights, unless you cooperate." Franklin really didn't like playing the PATRIOT Act, it made him feel excessively dirty, but Daria's unusual behavior had him feeling very uneasy.

"What time is it now, Agent Franklin? I mean, the exact time."

"It just so happens to be 10:59."

"Ah, not too long then."

"Do you care to elaborate on that statement?" Franklin asked. Either Daria was dicking him around, or...

"Do you know about the water in Highland, Agent Franklin?" she asked.

"I can't say that I do."

"For over two decades, it's been contaminated. My mother drank of it when she was pregnant with me and, as a result, I cannot bear children."

"Contaminated? Contaminated with what?"

Daria hesitated a moment.

"Uranium."

Franklin's watch read 10:59:59.

XXXX

A gigantic mushroom bloomed over what used to be Washington, DC. Over a hundred thousand people died from the initial blast, including the President, Vice President, most of the Cabinet, and Congress. Prominent landmarks, private homes, hospitals, fire stations, all were felled with equal prejudice. Where the buildings had not been utterly destroyed fires raged, consuming wood, paper, cloth, flesh -- anything flammable. Thousands who had survived the blast lay trapped beneath rubble, or writhing in pain from massive burning, or wandered blindly, calling for help. The nation's capital had become hell on Earth in under a minute.

XXXX

The second the lights went out and the room began to shake, Daria leapt forward and drove her thumbs into Franklin's eyes. The man screamed aloud before passing out from shock a moment later. In the dark, she felt for his wallet, keys, and service pistol, then hurriedly pulled off the jumpsuit, stripped Franklin of his suit, and put it on. She figured if she stowed her glasses and made her voice sound husky, she could pass for a fresh recruit. She ran to the door (which opened to her touch with the failure of the electrical lock) and ran out, hysterically shouting "The prisoner's escaped!" She knew it would send nearby agents in a wild goose chase, and so quietly pressed herself against the wall as she heard footsteps rush past her, men shouting, displaced air from bodies puffing against her.

She felt her way through a few corridors until she finally found another door and opened it. The room once had a large window with a view of the capital. Now, its former occupant lay dead, having bled out from several shards of glass embedded in his body. Daria ignored that, though, as the urban wasteland outside burned. She approached the window and stuck her head out looking for the tip of the mushroom cloud, but the building was overshadowed by its cap so it was a futile gesture.

Daria backed away several paces, then seized up a wastebasket and proceeded to dry heave into it. After several minutes of this, Daria spat a few times to get the taste of bile out of her mouth and left the office. She had to keep moving and get out of the city, reach a working phone. She had 12 hours until the next bomb went off, and she didn't want to deviate from the plan any more than necessary. 


	2. Chapter 2

Three hours later, Daria found herself in a group of several dozen people in a railyard, people who had the idea of hopping on a train to escape the destroyed city. The mushroom cloud had lost much of its shape by now, but the city still burned -- would probably still be burning for days to come.

A man, an employee of the rail yard, appeared to lead the people to the few trains which hadn't been disabled by the EMP effect. They were diesel engines which were attached to cargo cars, so the refugees wouldn't even get the luxury of a seat, let alone a seatbelt.

Daria pulled herself up into a car which looked empty. The aroma of cheap booze which met her nose proved this to be false.

"Whoizzit?" A voice slurred out from a dark corner of the car.

"Me," Daria answered.

"Ah. Say, what the hell was that racket before?"

"Somebody bombed DC."

"Did they? That suh- hic -sucks."

Daria waited to see if the drunken woman had any further input on the matter. Instead, she was greeted with quiet snoring. She thought the woman had a good idea, so she removed the jacket she had scavenged from a used goods store, bunched it up under her head, and closed her eyes.

XXXX

The train car bumped a little at an irregularity in the track, which woke Daria up. She shivered as wind whipped through the open car. She put the jacket back on as she stood up to see about closing the car's door. She heaved and grunted, but the door refused to budge.

"Hey," she called out to the other passenger.

"Whaa?"

"Can you give me a hand with this door?"

"Oh. Yeah."

As the woman stepped into the light, Daria appraised her. The woman wore a gray hoodie zipped all the way up and blue jeans. She kept her black hair in a short ponytail and had blue eyes.

Together, the women were able to shove the door closed. The drunken woman shuffled back to her corner of the car in the darkness and turned on a lantern. She unscrewed a bottle with no label and half-filled with amber liquid and took a long pull. "Shit yeah," she uttered.

"Can I have some?" Daria asked. The woman wordlessly handed over the rotgut, and Daria took an even longer pull, leaving the bottle almost empty.

"Damn, don't take it all," the woman complained. Daria shrugged and handed the bottle back. She polished off the remaining bit and dismissed the bottle, which rolled to the rear end of the car.

"M'name's Jane," the woman introduced herself. "Been wandering the country for, oh, ten years? Fifteen? The wandering Lanes!" Jane giggled at the last.

"My name's Daria," Daria returned. "What were you doing in Washington?"

"Oh, jus' swinging by. Thought I'd check out the Smis-Smithsonian." Jane's brow furrowed as she remembered what Daria had told her earlier. "Guess that ain't happening."

"Where do you live, Jane?"

Jane grew silent. "Nowhere, really. Used t'have a home, but the bank forc... forc... took it, an' I had to live in the Tank with my brother."

"Your brother had a tank?" Daria asked in surprise.

"No, no," Jane corrected, grinning. "It was called the Tank. An indestructible van. Not even nukes can stop it!" Jane giggled again.

"Where is he now?"

Once again, the brightness left Jane. "Dead. Some fuckin' pig picked him up for possession, he gets 20 under the three strikes law, and then he gets 30 from the man he shared a cell with who made a shiv." An angry snarl formed on Jane's face as she spoke and remembered the pain of losing her brother twice. "On my own ever since."

"Don't you have any other family?"

Jane shook her head. "Not r'ly. Mom 'n dad, they were barely there. Penny's serving 10 years in Mexico for drug-running. Courtney...damned if I know. And Wind drank himself to death. Not a bad fuckin' idea, really."

Jane looked sidelong at Daria. "How 'bout you? You got family?"

Daria shook her head no. "My parents and sister were killed in a burglary while I was at university." She closed her eyes as the memory of Todd's trial came back. Todd had disappeared after the hung jury. Daria kept him alive a long, long time. Her eyes opened again. "Then, after I lost my ability to bear children -- along with my unborn son -- my husband left me."

"Shit," Jane remarked.

The women didn't speak again for a long time, enduring their sorrow together.

XXXX

The train had let them off in West Virginia. A bus was waiting to take them to a camp that FEMA had set up, but Daria declined to board. She tugged on Jane's hoodie as she went to board. "Want to tag along with me?"

Jane thought about it, then shrugged. "Why not. No better plans, anyway."

They walked a few miles until they came upon a diner. Daria approached a waitress who was clearing the table. "Excuse me, ma'am," she began. "My friend and I just got out of DC, and we don't have any money. We were hoping if we could get a meal if we worked in the kitchen-"

The waitress cut them off. "From DC? You survived that? Oh, Lord have mercy, you don't have to do a thing. I'll whip you girls up some BLTs and a pot of coffee -- and if you want anything else, just ask. It's all on the house."

"Really? Wow, thanks." Daria paused for a moment. "Do you have a payphone I could use?" The waitress nodded, pointed at the far end of the diner, and fished out a few quarters from her own pocket. "Thanks again," Daria said, then went to make the call.

The phone rang twice before the earpiece emitted three beeps. Daria punched in a ten-digit number and waited five seconds. The phone emitted five beeps. Daria punched in a five-digit code this time, then hung up.

She had already constructed an arsenal of considerable size. Being a private citizen who wasn't really supposed to own nuclear weapons, she didn't keep all her eggs in one basket. Every time she finished a device, she would drive to a new city, rent out a long-term storage unit, install lead shielding, and leave the nuke inside. Each bomb was affixed with wifi, and all of them synchronized with a central server which hid behind proxies and firewalls. (The server had several backups scattered around the world, each with similar security measures). In the event that she was captured without hope of escape or killed, the server was designed to wait for four days, then detonate the first bomb in the sequence she had programmed. One bomb would be detonated every 12 hours afterward, until she entered the reset code (which she had just done) or until there were no more bombs.

Daria returned to the booth where Jane had taken a seat. The waitress had already brought the promised coffee. Daria took a welcome sip, while Jane slipped in a little extra with a hip flask.

She began to ponder her next move. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Welcome to Mental in the Morning, your nationally-syndicated morning show hosted by me, Bing-"

"And me, the Spatula Man."

"Well, I guess there's only one thing to talk about, isn't there? The DC bomb."

"Yeah."

"Let's...let's take a caller. Dave in Kansas, you're on."

"Hey, Bing, Spatula Man, I hope we nuke those fucking sand nig-"

"Sorry about that, folks. Our producer couldn't, uh, come in today, so we're kinda running the show ourselves, and that means no delay. Please keep the cursing down."

"I doubt it matters much anyway. Does the FCC still exist?"

"...Well, we've got Quinn, from West Virginia. Quinn, your thoughts?"

XXXX

"Do you know why I'm mental in the morning?" Daria spoke into the phone.

"Um, Quinn-" Bing was cut off.

"Human stupidity. The government which callously pollutes the environment, the law which lets a murderer go on a technicality, the entitled rich, smug bastards, who think they can treat us plebes like nothing, like trash to be disposed of...that, gentlemen, is why I'm mental in the morning."

"Quinn, I don't see how-" This time, Spatula Man was cut off.

"That's why I destroyed Washington."

There was dead air on the radio for a full minute, but everybody listening was glued to their seats.

"What." Spatula Man finally bit out.

"I said, 'That's why I destroyed Washington'."

"Bullshit," Bing uttered, a tremor in his voice.

"Do you want me to prove it? Very well, it just so happens that's why I called in the first place."

"Prove it? How?" Spatula Man's voice was now a hoarse whisper.

"Eeny, meeny, miney...Bing, what's your favorite city, Chicago or New Orleans?"

Five seconds later, mass pandemonium broke out in those cities. People already on the roads floored it, colliding with those who had slower acceleration. Five hundred people were dead in under thirty seconds from pileups.

Bing, however, was speechless.

"You see, I really like the Sears Tower. As phallic symbols go, they don't get much bigger, except for those ones in Asia and the Middle East. On the other hand, you can't deny the appeal of Mardi Gras. Where else can you exchange little plastic beads for a woman's self-debasement?"

Bing finally spoke. "My mother...she lives in Chicago."

"Well, I guess that's the tiebreaker vote. I hope you guys don't have very many listeners in New Orleans. Well, that is, you won't have many after...now."

Daria sent the command on the computer to destroy the city. She reflected it was especially cruel on her part to wipe it out after all the time it had spent recovering from Hurricane Katrina, but she'd hate to break the DJ's heart by killing his mother.

"What do you WANT?" Spatula Man demanded, close to tears.

"Mm, I'll let you know later," Daria replied. "Right now, though, I have places to go, cities to bomb, you know how it is. See you around, guys."

Daria logged off the computer and hung up the phone. She had been using the computer in the hotel room she had rented for herself and Jane. She turned to her new companion, who had been snoring quietly on the bed, an open bottle of whiskey on the nightstand next to her. "Jane," she said. She shook the woman. "Jane, it's time to go."

"Don' wanna," Jane complained, turning over.

"I bought us two tickets for a bus, which leaves in an hour. Let's go."

"Oh fine," Jane surrendered, reaching out for her liquid breakfast. After taking a long drink, she turned to Daria. "Where're we headed?"

"Montana."

XXXX

"Can we...can we confirm that New Orleans got hit?" Bing asked aloud.

"We've got Fred in Louisiana. Fred, talk to us."

"She did it, she goddamn did it," Fred said, near tears. "I live about a hundred miles north of New Orleans, and there was a flash, and now there's a mushroom cloud, fuck it's big..."

"Jesus Christ in Heaven," Spatula Man uttered. 


	4. Chapter 4

Daria blinked her eyes open as the rising sun reflected into them via the nearby river.

The bus had been going since last night. Daria didn't know where they were, but suspected they were crossing the Mississippi River. She looked over at Jane who, surprisingly enough, was awake and drawing on a sketch pad.

"You draw?" Daria asked.

"Used to," Jane answered. "These days, I only really get the urge when I'm sober. So, barely ever." Her voice had a harsh tone in it; it was apparently unlawful to carry alcoholic beverages onto public transportation, and Jane had thrown a huge fit before Daria calmed her down and promised to buy her all the booze she wanted in Montana.

"I used to write, myself," Daria said. "They were mostly elaborate revenge fantasies."

"Why did you stop writing them?"

"Too realistic," Daria muttered. Jane gave Daria a questioning look, but went back to sketching. Daria glanced over at the drawing: It was a Christmas wreath with the words 'Peace on Earth' written on it. A mushroom cloud rose up through the center of the wreath. "Not bad," she complimented.

Jane grunted, showing that she was one of the few people who were surly when they were not drunk.

XXXX

Daria hadn't thought about Melody Powers in a long time.

She had created the character as an answer to the macho James Bond-type spies suaving their way through the genre. Plus, she liked to write about explosions and gunplay -- the Communists, just as in McCarthy's day, were just easy targets.

Of course, after that godawful Michael Myers movie came out, she'd never actually be able to publish a Melody Powers story. But it was still fun to write them.

Then, one day at college, she got a call asking her to come down to the morgue.

The trial was a blur. For all intents and purposes, she sleep-walked through it, a zombie with a pulse. The hung jury verdict was a slap in the face, one meant to wake her up.

It was an impulsive thing to do, really. Follow Todd around for a week, wait for him to be alone, then knock him unconscious and...do something. Well, maybe it was less impulsive as she watched him for hours, noting his every move and nose-picking.

It was incredibly stupid and dangerous, too. Todd could have just as easily have killed her, or done something worse to her.

(She suspected that 'something worse' had been done to Quinn, but never had the guts to ask the coroner, and it had never come up in the trial).

She could also have been arrested and charged with stalking Todd, which she was indeed doing. She stayed inconspicuous, just like Melody Powers would have. A bottle of hair dye and some contact lenses beat slinking around in the shadows like the fucking Hamburglar any day.

Unlike a spy with years of experience, though, Daria had little patience, and so one evening knocked on his apartment door and clocked him across the face with a brick.

She managed to drag him back to her car (people seldom look out their windows in bad neighborhoods) and, upon driving home, dragged him into the basement, relishing each time his head thudded against a stair.

She fastened him to an old boxspring, making sure his limbs were bound nice and tight. Then she waited for him to wake up.

She endeavoured to fill his every waking moment with agony. Bamboo shoots, citric fruits -- the Dr. Seuss of torture.

She dredged up every single trick she ever thought of for a Melody Powers story -- something she had read in a book about real Cold War spies, or had seen in a movie, or had plucked fresh from her own malevolent imagination.

She made Todd hurt and she liked it.

Until finally, Todd's heart decided that it had had enough and submitted its resignation. The foul odor of Tom's bowels evacuating themselves brought Daria back to lucidity.

She stared at what she had done for a long moment, then stumbled to a corner and retched.

She burned everything she had ever written after that.

XXXX

Daria let out a gasp of fear as the hand gripped her arm in a vise--

Then opened her eyes and realized she had been dreaming about Todd again. The hand on her arm, however, belonged to Jane, who had shaken her awake.

"You have a nightmare?" she asked. Daria nodded.

"I don't really want to talk about it."

Jane nodded. "Yeah. Some nightmares are contagious. Anyway, I think we're here."

Daria looked out the window. The bus had rolled to a stop in front of a depot, with a sign proclaiming it to be the Helena Greyhound Terminal. "Yeah. Let's go." 


	5. Chapter 5

Daria and Jane got out of the car as quickly as they could without breaking a door off. The man who offered to drive them to Daria's cabin from Helena had ranted and raved the entire way about how the liberals were ultimately responsible for the destruction of DC and New Orleans.

As the car pulled away, Daria reflected that God, if he existed, was on her side. After all, why else would He keep egging her on with specimens of humanity like that?

"So where the hell is this cabin?" Jane asked.

Daria pointed down a lane (heh) partially concealed by trees. "This way, about a mile."

Jane grumbled the whole way. Daria wasn't very fond of Jane, but she sensed in the woman a kindred spirit. Maybe someday...well, not today, anyway.

Daria unlocked the door to the cabin, and Jane made her way to the kitchen area. Foresight had won the day for Daria -- even though she never anticipated bringing a guest to the cabin, she had kept a small collection of liquors anyway. Jane now wielded a corkscrew and attacked a bottle of wine without abandon.

Daria left her to her devices and made a beeline for the bathroom -- she hadn't showered since being taken into custody by the FBI.

She stayed in the shower for nearly half an hour, using up all the hot water. Upon getting out, she assessed herself in the mirror (after wiping off the condensation). Her hair was slowly starting to reclaim the scalp. She considered this for a minute, then grabbed her shaving utensils from their shelf in the shower. She methodically lathered her head and pulled the razor across it, leaving her scalp as bare as a newborn babe's. She toweled off excess lather and once again looked at herself in the mirror. It suited her.

XXXX

Daria stepped into the kitchen, robe surrounding her. Jane was already bombed, sitting against the cabinets, open wine bottle next to her having been drained of more than half its contents. She looked up at Daria. "Oh hey, you cut yer hair!" Jane pointed out. "Looks good!"

"Yes, I thought so too. Are you tired? You can sleep in my bed tonight."

Jane thought this through for a moment. "In your bed?" Jane asked. "Like, with you?"

A slight blush rose on Daria's cheeks. "Er, no. I'll sleep in...er, on the couch." She had almost let it slip.

"Ah." Jane turned her unfocused stare to the wine bottle. "Let me finish dinner and I'll head straight there." Daria nodded and left Jane to her war on her liver.

Daria adjourned to her office and locked the door behind her. She fired up her computer and evaluated the long-term plan she had mapped out.

She never intended to get caught. She was in Maryland to cover a game between Texas and Maryland, and just happened to have been talking to a man online who could supply her with some C4 (her usual supplier had been caught, alas). The man turned out to be an undercover agent, and the rest was history.

She wondered about her life in Highland. She imagined her apartment, door hanging on one hinge, everything ransacked by the police. She wondered how her editor would react when told that his sports reporter was responsible for dusting two cities.

She didn't have to imagine how Beavis and Butt-head would react: "Huh-huh-huh, that's cool." She had stayed 'friends' with the dumbass duo even after high school -- sure, they were the biggest examples of human stupidity around, but they had just...grown on her over the years. Maybe it was just that they were more honest than the average idiot. She had begun training them in recent years; they hardly asked to see her 'hooters' anymore.

Daria realized she would never see them again, and she closed off the entire line of thought. Instead, she considered what she should do now.

Originally, her plan was to just go public with the ownership of the nukes and demand that the country surrender to her agenda. She would have ushered in a new era of rational thought, peace, enlightenment, and other platitudes. If push came to shove, she probably wouldn't have set off any of the bombs. Of course, the failsafes she had installed made that a moot point, and she had had to set off the second bomb to establish that the first wasn't a fluke.

She decided to draft a manifesto to send to the press. It would put her grievances and demands into a public forum, and would erase even the tiniest doubt that she would strike again.

'My fellow Americans,' she began. 'A sickness has been infesting this great nation of ours. I refer to the epidemic known as human stupidity...' 


	6. Chapter 6

Several weeks passed.

In Montana, Daria and Jane bonded over watching terrible movies Daria downloaded and burned to DVD. Every few days Jane would finish drinking her way through Daria's stock of alcohol, and Daria would take the car she stored there into the nearest town (some 15 miles away) and stock up on the essentials. Since her name and face were plastered over every TV, blog, and newspaper by now, she wore a blonde wig and contacts which colored her eyes green. The contacts irritated her so, but it was necessary.

Daria also encouraged Jane to draw more often. Jane would, but informed Daria that it wouldn't be fair if Daria didn't start writing again. Daria considered it.

One reason the feds weren't knocking on her cabin door just yet was because she had bought and paid for the land under an assumed name. Her cautionary measures and failsafes seemed to be pretty useful lately.

In the remaining major cities around America, people were very restless. Daria's manifesto had upset many, and had the acting President (the Secretary of Agriculture, of all people) not instituted martial law, the nation may have descended into complete anarchy. As it was, the government was going through with a gradual evacuation program of America's cities -- 'important' citizens first, people like scientists, politicians, men of industry -- designed to have as little of an impact on the nation's economy as possible.

Not that that would do much good; the stock market had been in a tailspin ever since the destruction of DC, and the destruction of New Orleans only exacerbated it. The permanent closure of one of America's oil ports had caused the average price of gas to shoot up to eight dollars a gallon -- though, with everybody staying at home thanks to the martial law, that wasn't so bad as it could have been.

There was a booming market in homemade bomb shelters. The industry was even bigger than during the height of the Cold War, and every company that sold canned goods soon had a problem meeting demand.

XXXX

"When are you gonna kick me out?"

The question surprised Daria. "Huh?" she asked intelligently.

"Well, people usually jus' let me stay a day or two." Jane shrugged, then took a drink from the bottle of tequila she was nursing. "If I let 'em fuck me, a week, tops. Then, they get sick of me drinkin' all their booze, or they don' like my attitude or some shit, and it's back on the road."

Daria processed the fact that Jane had prostituted herself for several moments before examining the rest of the statement. Then, she spoke:

"The thing is, Jane...you're the first real friend I've had. Ever. You're actually interesting to talk to, which puts you above pretty much everybody I've ever known. You draw interesting things. We both enjoy ridiculing bad movies. I mean...if you don't object to it, I wouldn't mind if you stayed around for a long while."

Jane stared at Daria for a long moment, mouth agape. Then, she flung herself at Daria, embracing her, as sobs wracked her body. This made Daria extremely uncomfortable, but she decided (reluctantly) to reciprocate the hug.

Daria wondered if Jane was ready... 


	7. Chapter 7

Jane turned to Daria. They were watching the latest bad movie, some crime-fighting flick from Japan that had poor subtitles, and her friend was being unusually quiet.

Daria noticed Jane's look. "Tomorrow is a bad day," she informed Jane.

"Why?"

"Tomorrow is my wedding anniversary."

Jane was jolted. She instinctively hugged Daria, out of a need to comfort the woman. Daria accepted the gesture more quickly than she had the last time -- she was amused at the idea of getting used to hugs. After the two parted, they watched the movie some more.

Daria turned to Jane. "I have an errand to run, and I'll be gone a day or two starting tomorrow. Do you think you can take care of the place?" she asked.

Jane's mind quickly calculated the amount of liquor left in Daria's kitchen. "Yeah, I should be fine."

"Thanks." The rest of the movie went on in silence.

XXXX

Daria reflected on how she had first met her ex-husband as she drove. It was a year into university, two years before her family departed. She was on vacation to the Museum of Medical Oddities, and he had tripped into her. He apologized and flirted with her in the same breath, then invited her out to dinner as a way to make up for it.

He took her to bed that night.

Daria decided that it must have been because he was the first man ever to express interest in her (Beavis and Butt-head's 'thingies' aside). She supposed that it was a bad move, as they had married less than a year later. A few months after that, a messy miscarriage revealed her condition, and her husband's affluent family had thrown money at her to go away.

Her parents being butchered less than three months later didn't help her mood.

Daria knew where he lived now. His family was from New England, but he kept a residence in California. She wondered how she would greet him, after years of absence. She couldn't think of anything to actually say, but the gun in her glove compartment had a few choice words it wanted to share.

A few miles out, she stopped to remove her wig and contacts and put on the glasses. She wanted him to know it was her. She drove the rest of the way to the house with the gun in her lap.

Each step she took from her car to the front door was like wading into the deep end of a pool of molasses. Every neuron in her body was screaming 'RETREAT!' at the top of its lungs. Her hand was a leaden weight as it reached up to press the doorbell.

Every second after she heard the deep tones ring throughout the house, her stomach tied itself into another tension knot. She had to persevere, had to see it through--

The knob was turning.

She drew her pistol and fired twice before the door opened all the way up.

"Daria?" the woman asked, more in surprise than anything. She slumped down on her knees, then fell to the side.

"Elsie?" Daria said, deflated. She looked back up, past her body, where Tom Sloane was standing, a horrified look in his face. Daria raised the gun and fired. 


	8. Chapter 8

Tom woke up with a throbbing headache. He gripped the side of his head and hissed as he pulled his hand back -- touching the side of his head only amplified the pain.

He looked around. He was in a small, concrete room, with a bed on one side and a toilet, sink, and mirror on the other. He walked over to the mirror and saw a bloody gash along the side of his head. He stared at it a moment before it all came rushing back: Daria, the gun, and...

"Elsie." Tom stumbled back to the bed and collapsed on it, sobbing. Why had Daria killed Elsie?

After some time had passed, he got up and tried the door. It was locked. He looked around the room and this time noticed something in the sink.

It was a walkie-talkie. After regarding it for a long moment, Tom picked it up and depressed the Send button. "Daria?"

Several heartbeats passed by. "Hello, Tom."

"Daria, damnit, you killed Elsie. The news is saying you were responsible for DC and New Orleans. What the hell is going on?"

"You really have to ask, Tom?" Tom could tell by the tone of her voice -- just slightly higher in pitch than her regular monotone -- that she was furious. "You callous, ignorant piece of shit. Maybe if you thought back to the last days of our marriage?"

Tom remembered all too well. They were eagerly awaiting the arrival of their first child when Daria violently miscarried. The doctors had barely managed to save her life. Tom, half-crazy with grief, had walked out and never returned. The last time they talked without a lawyer as a middle-man, Daria had informed him that she had lost the ability to bear children thanks to Highland's water.

Highland's water... "Jesus, Daria, you ARE the bomber. Why? What the fuck do you have to gain? What does your family think?"

"My family?" Daria's voice now took on a tone which made Tom's balls draw back up into him, like diving into a trench upon hearing an incoming shell. "Tom, I don't know how well you've kept abreast of current events, but my family was murdered after you left me."

Tom's stomach dropped out on him. "Oh Jesus God, Daria, I'm so sorry, if I'd known--"

"If you'd known, you wouldn't have done a God damned thing, Tom. You're an immature chickenshit who's never worked for anything in his life. Your first instinct when confronted with a dilemma is to have daddy throw money at it until it goes away. I suppose I should actually thank you for that...I wouldn't be where I am today without Angier's money."

Tom was struck silent. He had never made the connection to the divorce settlement Daria had gotten and the recent acts of terrorism she had been conducting.

"Well, Tom, this has been fun, but you've got a slow, agonizing death to look forward to, and I'd hate to distract you from that. Goodbye."

"Wait, no!" Tom shouted into the walkie-talkie, but Daria was ignoring him.

He tried the door again, tried kicking it and hitting it, but it was as sturdy as the wall. He looked under the bed and there saw a long gift-wrapped box, topped with a bow. A card affixed to the package read 'To: Tom From: Daria'.

He tentatively opened the box. Inside was a single bottle of wine, nestled in tissue paper. The label read Amontillado.

"Heh."

XXXX

On the other side of the door, Daria sat with her back to the bricks she had cemented in place into the doorway. She had a wine glass, filled with Amontillado (this from a different bottle than entombed with Tom). A tear betrayed her otherwise stoic expression as she took a sip from the wine. "Happy anniversary," she mumbled to herself.

XXXX

As Jane watched the forest outside, she idly wondered why Daria was crawling out of a hole in the ground. She shrugged and polished off the bottle of whiskey. 


	9. Chapter 9

"What's underground?"

Daria was taken off guard by the question. "What?"

"I saw you come up from underground th' other day."

Daria thought for a moment. Should she tell Jane?

"Jane, what would you do if you could do anything to the men who put your brother away?"

Jane looked surprised for a moment, then her face twisted into a snarl. "Make sure their funeral is closed coffin."

Daria nodded. "There's something I want to show you."

She led Jane out of the cabin, a few dozen feet into the woods. She moved part of a bush aside -- the entire shrub was fake -- revealing a metal hatch fastened with a padlock. Daria unlocked and opened it, said "Follow me," to Jane, and began climbing down a ladder.

Jane followed her slowly; being inebriated, she didn't want to lose her balance and fall, breaking something. The ladder was fairly short, anyway, about thirty or forty feet. At the bottom was the end of a long concrete corridor. The area was dirty and dusty. Refuse like discarded lengths of pipe and frayed wiring were up against the wall. But the lights were on, bare bulbs spaced several feet apart. Daria was already walking down the corridor, so Jane followed her.

"I got a rather large divorce settlement from my ex-husband -- his family was quite rich, you see -- and I invested it all into my 'Montana Cabin Fund'. Only I found something a little better than a cabin. This land was once part of a Titan missile base, now decommissioned. If the code ever came, four rockets would lift off into the night sky -- I always see nuclear war as a witching hour activity -- and make their way to their targets in China or the Soviet Union. Well, the missiles have long since been dismantled, their silos collapsed, but the rest of the facility was left intact and put up for sale to private investors. I bought it, cleaned it up a bit, did a little after-market modification..."

They had come to a door with a sign hanging above it, reading 'Mess Hall'. "You know, it's rather fitting that this place should once again be home to nuclear weapons."

"Wait...what?" Jane was confused by Daria's statement, but a very tiny voice inside of her started yelling as loud as it could.

Daria opened the doors. Where once there were several rows of tables and chairs, there was now a rather large cement dome. Pipes and wires ran out of it at bizarre angles.

"You know, several years ago in Michigan, a teenager was caught trying to assemble a breeder reactor. He had harvested the radioactive material from odd places, like smoke detectors and old glow-in-the-dark objects, which actually used radium. You see, he had become ensnared by the hope of an atomic tomorrow and the promise of limitless energy. A book was even written about the affair, titled The Radioactive Boy Scout. Really, he should have been born in the 40s or 50s."

Daria started pacing the circumference of the great dome. Jane noticed several computers around the room. The very tiny voice inside of her didn't seem to be VERY tiny anymore.

"I have two -- well, three, if you include the settlement money -- things that fellow in Michigan didn't have."

"What?" Jane asked. Her mouth felt dry.

"A supply of uranium, courtesy of the polluted drinking water of my hometown Highland, and the desire to end human stupidity -- by killing a very large number of them, if necessary."

"You..." Jane accused.

Daria nodded.

"Why?"

Daria was clearly taken aback by the question. "Why? Because of what happened to my mother, and my father, and my sister, and your brother. Because of everything that's ever been done to you or me due to the idiots who run the world. Because it should never have happened, and it shouldn't happen ever again."

Jane struggled for the words to say to challenge her argument. But she was too damn drunk and too damn injured by the revelation to think. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to hit Daria until she was just a bloody pile of chunks. She wanted to...

She ran.

"Jane!" Daria called. "Wait!"

Daria followed Jane as fast as she could, but she had never been in very good shape. Jane far outpaced her.

She made it to the ladder a full thirty seconds after Jane had disappeared up it. She knew it was too late to stop Jane, but she had to try. If Jane escaped, she would lead the authorities here, and that would force Daria's hand.

The garage door was still closed. Good. She raced to the cabin, intent on preventing Jane from leaving.

She needn't have worried. As she entered, she looked toward the kitchen, and saw Jane passed out on the floor. In her haste to leave consciousness as fast as possible, she had used her lead over Daria to gulp down two bottles of vodka, the hardest liquor in the house. Her last thought before going under was a prayer that she wouldn't wake up.

XXXX

She did.

She fastened her lips to the mouth of another bottle, a self-destructive makeout session.

The days passed and Jane's health grew worse. Daria dutifully supplied her friend with the means to kill herself -- she figured she owed her that much.

Meanwhile, Daria kept an eye on the clock. In her manifesto, she had included a perfectly reasonable timetable for the nation to surrender to her, and that day would be tomorrow. Yet, the government (or rather, the figurehead to the shadow government undoubtedly running things now) remained steadfast in rejecting her demands.

So the day came and she scratched Los Angeles and Boston.

She didn't tell Jane. 


	10. Chapter 10

"Wuh-" Jane staggered into Daria's office. "Wuh will you do 'f they don' surrend- surrend- give up?" she slurred. She kept one hand behind her back as inconspicuously as an extremely drunk person could.

Daria had been typing a new message to the press into her computer. She turned to Jane. "I'm going to kill them all."

"You won'- you won' kill th' bigwigs, though. They'll all be safe in their lil' hidey-holes, jus' like yours. So...why do it inna firs' place?"

Daria sighed. "I don't intend for there to be much of an America left for them to lead. If they're so intent on destroying the country, I may as well hurry along the process."

"NO!" Jane shouted, and whipped her hidden hand around. In it she held a broken bottle-neck, and her intent was obvious.

She had the right intentions, but she really should have prepared for her plan better than a days-long drinking binge. Daria sidestepped the first thrust, easily knocked Jane to the floor, and pinned her there with a single foot. She casually opened the drawer of the desk her computer sat on and withdrew a taser. "I'm sorry, Jane. I wish it didn't have to come to this." Jane wasn't listening, as she was screaming and crying at the same time. Daria removed her foot and touched the taser's prongs to the back of Jane's neck.

XXXX

"Why don't you just kill me?" Jane begged.

Daria had taken her down into the bunker while she was unconscious and had imprisoned her inside one of the small dorm rooms with a length of chain attached to her leg.

Daria considered the question. "Because you're me. Only your soul is more resilient, I guess. I used to think mine was too." Daria sat down on the cot. "I'm damned. I'm not stupid enough to think otherwise. And since I don't believe there are degrees of damnation, I may as well see my plan through to the end. What I'm doing is by no stretch of the imagination right or just...but at least I'm honest, and my only hope is that that will count, in the end."

Jane just glared at Daria, who eventually wilted and left the room.

XXXX

Daria had just sent the message off to the press (including an ultimatum of one week to surrender before she erased another two cities from the equation) when she heard knocking on her door. "Oh shit," she uttered, grabbing the taser and checking its battery. She glanced out the window, which overlooked the path leading to her cabin. No SWAT vans or tanks or serious-looking men talking into walkie-talkies. It didn't mean that she hadn't finally been found, though.

As she descended the stairs, the knocking came again. She gauged the knock: It didn't sound angry or forceful; it was more like a neighborly tap. She expected a middle-aged woman, red hair with greying roots, a little on the chubby side, asking for a cup of sugar. As she opened the door, she kept the taser ready, hidden just behind the curve of her hip.

"Aunt Amy?"

"If it isn't my favorite niece," the woman greeted, before lifting up a can of mace and spraying it into Daria's face.

Daria screeched and dropped the taser, bringing her hands up to claw away at the chemicals. She knocked her glasses off in the process -- they didn't shield her eyes from the spray anyway, and since they felt like they were on fire they wouldn't be of much use to her.

She staggered towards the kitchen, feeling her way around, searching for the faucet. She found it and immediately turned it on full-blast, cupping her hands and splashing water into her face. After doing this several times, her vision returned, albeit blurry as hell. The pain level had gone from napalm hot to taco sauce hot.

Daria turned to face her Aunt Amy. Well, the blur which most resembled her aunt. "How did you find me?" she asked, her voice hoarse from the scream of pain and surprise earlier.

"It took a bit of detective work," the woman admitted. "The first clue was something you told me once some time ago, after your divorce. You said something about using the settlement for your Montana Cabin Fund."

Daria nodded, and on wobbly feet (the blurriness was disorienting her) slowly approached. "Well, that narrowed it down to a few hundred thousand square miles."

"Yes, quite. So I've spent my time the past few weeks, pouring over land records in the state capital -- I could have found this place a lot sooner, but apparently land sale records are not available to the public -- until I found you -- or rather, the name you assumed."

"I see. I guess I should never have sent you my writings when I was younger."

"You got that right, 'Melody'." The older woman cocked her head to the side, evaluating her niece. "Rita and Erin were in DC. Did you know that?"

Daria suddenly lost all the strength in her legs. "No. Why?"

"Erin and Brian's divorce was back on yet again, and Brian wanted the hearing to be on home turf."

Daria wept then.

XXXX

They had moved to the living room. Daria once again had her glasses on (her vision was still a little rough, though) and she could now clearly see the gun that Amy casually aimed at her.

Daria had told her everything -- killing Todd, killing Tom, meeting Jane, even the details of constructing the bombs.

"What now?" Daria asked her aunt.

She considered the question for a long moment. "I'm pretty sure we can make a case of not guilty by reason of insanity."

Daria considered life in an institution. Medicated up to her gills, her only peers individuals just as disturbed as her...she would probably hang herself with her bedsheets in a year.

On the other hand, prison itself wouldn't be a cheery prospect. She'd probably be stuck in solitary confinement for the rest of her life, or be given the needle. She didn't have any options.

"I think I like my way better," she told her aunt, and lunged.

She took Amy by surprise; Amy only managed to pull the trigger once before Daria was on her. In landing on her, Daria kneed her in the stomach, forcing her to drop the gun and winding her. Daria wrapped her hands around her aunt's neck. "I'm sorry," she gritted through her tears. "It's easier for everybody this way, I think."

It was over in a few minutes. Daria stood and only then noticed the bloodstain spreading out around the hole in her stomach. She suddenly coughed and spat out a clot of blood.

She didn't have much time.

XXXX

Jane had just gotten comfortable when the door opened and Daria stumbled in. She had taken her shirt off and a large, red-soaked bandage had been placed onto her stomach. Her pale skin evidenced that she had lost a lot of blood; Jane didn't give her long to live.

"What happened?" Jane asked her.

"I killed both my aunts," Daria replied, sparing a moment to cry some more. "My Aunt Rita and my cousin Erin were in DC, and I just now strangled my Aunt Amy to death. I'll be joining them soon, I know."

"So...so let me free, then," Jane suggested.

Daria faced Jane. "I was planning on it, actually." She reached a shaky hand out, the key to the lock in it. Jane swiped it and freed herself. She was at the door in a second.

"Wait."

She stopped at Daria's voice.

"I don't want to die alone."

Jane stared at Daria. Daria the liar. Daria the family-killer. Daria the terrorist.

Daria the only friend she ever had.

"Okay," Jane finally said.

She helped Daria up. "Where to, amiga?"

"The dome."

Together they walked through the bunker's halls to the mess hall turned nuclear weapons factory. Jane gently let Daria sit in one of the stray chairs in the room.

Jane looked around the room, finally focusing on one of the computers. A single word was on the screen: 'INITIATED'.

She turned to Daria. "What's initiated, Daria? WHAT'S INITIATED?"

Daria looked up at her friend. "My last failsafe," she told her friend. "Every last bomb has now gone off. New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco--"

"How many nukes did you build?" Jane interrupted.

"Fifteen. The last four are actually highly potent dirty bombs I developed, intended to render the vastness of America's farmland sterile. If I'd had the time, I would have set up a bomb to a weather balloon, have it go off in the upper atmosphere, fry every electronic device on the continent." She let out a series of coughs, after which she spat out a quantity of blood to her side.

Jane turned to leave. "Why bother?" Daria called after her. "Weren't you trying to drink yourself to death these past few days? I've shut down the safeties on the reactor. In...oh, an hour or so, it'll blow its top. It'll probably start a forest fire, and it'll spew enough radioactive ash over the state to keep people out for ten thousand years. If you stay here, it'll be quick. I can promise you that much."

Jane considered the offer. She wasn't likely to get a better one.

"Okay," she conceded. She turned and sat down with Daria for the last time in her life. "So, what do you do when you're about to die?"

Daria revealed two syringes. "Morphine," she explained. "Enough to get us so high we wouldn't notice if we were being beaten to death with our own ripped-off arms."

Jane nodded her head. She took one of the syringes, eyed it warily, then shrugged and jabbed herself in the arm. Daria did the same.

They made small talk for a while. After a few minutes, Daria started shivering. "I'm cold," she complained. If it weren't for the radioactive time bomb, the blood loss would have killed her very soon.

"Come here," Jane told her as she took off her own shirt. She embraced Daria, warming her up with her own body heat.

And they stayed that way until the end. 


End file.
